


Not Alone - A Metroid novella

by FairFriend



Category: Metroid Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27031420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairFriend/pseuds/FairFriend
Summary: This is a character study that delves deep into Samus' past and psychology while also offering the unique point of view of a young orphan whom she has taken under her wing.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3





	Not Alone - A Metroid novella

Darkness made the spacious control bridge feel very cramped. All the lights were out, except for a few LEDs of the control panels, blinking in the total darkness. It had to be that way, otherwise the electron-magnetic emission would give away the position of the ship. While humans are not capable of detecting such signals, one never knows what kind of sensory capabilities the alien creatures of uncharted planets might possess.

It was always like this, when she was out on a mission. He’d never been allowed to follow her – a decision he’d never disputed, notwithstanding how much he desired to join her. The odds were overwhelmingly against him, a fact even a teenager could recognize. It doesn’t take much wisdom to realize that it is not a good idea to set foot on a planet whose very atmosphere could kill you. However, it seemed like this realization had never dawned upon her, for she had left that ship time and again, without uttering so much as a single word.

Different and strange as the landscapes and the perils therein were, the motive was always the same: a bounty to collect, hidden in the darkest recesses of planets with no names, hoping that it would not be found by the most feared bounty hunter that ever lived.

Young as she was, she had already made a name for herself; indeed, so inevitable was the outcome of the hunt, when she was involved, that some would rather give themselves up to the federation force, than chance a confrontation. She was rumoured to be human, but nobody had seen her face, since she always wore a helmet, and her demonstrated physical abilities put her above even the most celebrated athletes. One certainty existed: she was an expert in the use of the ancient Chozo craft, the technology left behind by the primogenital civilization that was said to have spawned all those that now thrived in this corner of the universe.

The armour that she wore presented a marked resemblance to the statues immortalizing the warriors of the lost civilization; these statues were scattered throughout the galaxy, remnants of a bygone era when the Chozo empire extended beyond the limits of contemporary cartography.

To him, these were all meaningless rumours, for he knew exactly who she was and where she came from – though it had taken a long time for her to open up. Such was the life that she had conducted before their meeting, that she was completely estranged to any form of conviviality. The consequence of this had been that, in almost two years, all that he had learnt about her amounted to what could be surmised by following her in her adventures – as much as he was allowed to – and by looking at her from afar.

She was stoic: nothing could ever move her to betray a feeling other than stern determination. At the same time though, she was compassionate: she had accepted many quests and answered many calls for help without prospect of compensation, when she deemed the cause just. She was tall; indeed, standing at 1.90 metres tall, she was more than imposing. Nonetheless, subjective assessments such as this were meaningless in her line of duty, in which it was rare to encounter another human, and members of species that had originated on planets light years away one from the other were in fierce competition.

She had long, straight hairs; so long in fact, that he’d assumed they hadn’t been cut at all since a young age. She used to wear them in a ponytail, which she undid only when maintenance was needed. Her routine was meticulous, but no amount of care was put in anything deemed accessory. One would have assumed that she had a disdain for that body of hers that was endowed with so much strength and agility, and to which her successful career as bounty hunter was partially indebted.

Having noticed this, he had taken it upon himself, after being granted permission, to look after some of the most menial tasks that, while necessary, could potentially diverge her attention. It was like this that he came to enjoy the pleasure of brushing her wonderful blonde hairs, when the need arose and the situation allowed for a moment of respite. When busy with such activity, serenity gradually descended upon his heart – a feeling of blissfulness that made him forget the sad circumstances under which the two of them had met.

She seemed to tolerate this ritual with patience, her eyes looking inwardly, contemplating thoughts that were not to be put into words. These long silences were always interrupted by her abrupt standing up, but no remonstration could be perceived in her demeanour. The time for solace had run up: for each habitable planet of a galaxy comprised of billions of stars, there were thousands of jobs waiting to be done.

Moments like these not only served the purpose of letting them catch a break between jobs, but also made for beautiful reminders of better times to come, that he would recall when left alone aboard the ship, during a hunt. When in this predicament, he would go over the pleasant memories that he had jealously collected, trying to evoke the sensations conserved therein. But when the hunt went on for days, or even weeks, as it happened frequently, he would look out of the cockpit window, gazing at the alien sky and wondering whether she had finally met her match.

He was in this precise state of mind, when a sudden but not unfamiliar sound awoke him: the sound of her boots stomping on the soil. However, something about it had alerted him and sharpened his senses. The cadence was not the one he was used to, strong and regular, but rather sluggish and syncopated. The sound came to an abrupt end, farther from the spaceship lift than it should have, and it was followed by the heavy thump of a 100 Kg giant falling on their knees and then collapsing on the ground.

The yellow metal of the power-suit was barely visible through the thick rain, half buried in the mud. From the cockpit he could see clearly that she was still. Nonetheless, he did not rush outside, knowing that there was nothing he could do with his meagre strength. Doing so would only expose him to the dangers that larked in the shadows, thus aggravating the already delicate situation. Instead, he made an effort to stay calm and recall all the things that he had seen and heard during his time aboard the ship, looking for something that may help the situation. Suddenly, it came to him the recollection of an attachment of sorts, that she had used occasionally to upgrade her suit. It was a grapple, capable of latching onto many different surfaces, and exerting a pulling force many times greater that of its user. Installation was a simple matter of plugging the attachment in a dedicated socket, located on the left vambrace of the suit; a trivial job that could be carried out anyone – even a child. In the event that she had lost consciousness, he would activate the grapple himself. If he could manage to hit the lift with it, it would drag both of them right under the belly of the spaceship, where it would be possible for him to carry her onboard with his own strength.

He immediately set out to put the plan into motion, not allowing himself to dwell on the thought that it may be all for naught: under no circumstance he would leave her behind. Finding the grapple was easy enough: it was stocked in the armoury, exactly where it was supposed to be. That corner of the ship he knew well, since he had made it his duty to regularly polish the suit and the weaponry, even when maintenance was not needed. The grapple was almost as big as its torso, and heavy enough to make it impossible for him to run. He had to put it on the floor to call the lift that wound bring him to the ground.

The atmosphere was not deadly for humans, if exposition was limited – an information he had found out by glancing over the report displayed on the screen of the onboard computer. He’d activated it briefly before venturing outside, for it had to stay off in the hunter’s absence, not to attract the attention of the indigenous flora. Once he was outside, he realized that he’d been able to spot her only because he had a privileged view of the surroundings from the cockpit of the ship, that stood several metres above the ground. Now that he had descended, he could only orientate himself by recalling the view from the cockpit and using the spaceship itself as a landmark. This required a considerable effort of the imagination, his mental activity being already overworked by the stressful circumstances and the need to come up with a rescue plan quickly. In the end, it took him but a few seconds to check with his memories, before heading in the direction where he presumed he’d find her. Fortunately, his memories had not failed him, but he couldn’t help but noticing that not one limb of hers had moved at all, and so he started fearing the worst. He wasted no time installing the grapple; then, with both his arms, he raised her own left arm just enough to point the grapple at the lift. Since both his hands were busy, he resorted to smashing the activation button with his forehead. The grapple sprung with such force, that the recoil pushed the lifeless arm against his chest, dealing him a blow that left him grasping for air. His heartbeat was galloping harder than ever, and cold sweat ran down his brow. As his vision started to blur, he realized that his awareness was fading – he had to act quickly because, if he lost consciousness there and now, there was no telling if he would wake up, or if the air would slowly poison him to death.

He stretched his hand to reach the button to reel in the grapple, but his muscles were not responding properly, and the tiniest movement required a strength he did not have in him anymore. The sound of the rain was muffled – a tapestry of white noise to accompany his thoughts: “will I die here? Will I ever see her again?”. Suddenly, he felt the ground moving under his body, and at great speed. His senses were so feeble though, that he could barely perceive the friction against the soil, even though the rocks bruised him and made him bleed. The last thing he had a recollection of, before fainting, was the light of the lift shining over him, stronger and stronger, until he was blinded by it and forced to close his eyelids, only to open them much later.

He woke up in his bed, a mattress in an alcove of one of the metallic, cold walls of the spaceship. All the lights inside the spaceship were on, and so were the billion of lights of the firmament, the alien planet where he had thought he would lay forever a small dot soon to be engulfed by darkness. That the ship had left the planet could only mean that someone had had to initiate the launch sequence, and that someone could only be her.

The ship was equipped with many amazing technologies, including a cylindrical chamber, with glass walls, whose purpose could not be surmised at first glance. Having seen it in action more than once, he knew of his incredible powers of healing and regeneration. Stepping into the chamber, which had a diameter of roughly 2 metres, would activate a beam, whose physical attributes were unknown to everyone, except the minds who had engineered the chamber, but whose properties were impossible not to marvel at. Anyone who showered in that beam of energy for just under a minute, would emerge from the chamber healed of all the afflictions caused by physical damage.

His plan had been all along to carry her into the chamber, but that had not come to fruition. Fortunately, it was now clear that she had managed to get out of her suit and carry herself to it, though he could not begin to imagine the pain that she had had to endure. He was tortured by the thought of the unnecessary suffering inflicted upon her by his fainting.

He was about to stand up on his feet and rush to her with the intent of apologizing and asking how she was doing, despite knowing full well that she had already recovered by the time he had regained consciousness, when a hand gently pressed him, as to invite him to lay back on his bed. He looked up, meeting her gaze. It was as impenetrable as always - he could not tell if she was reprimanding him or if she was concerned about him. Veering on the side of caution, he apologized profusely, tripping over his words a few times. When he was done, he exhaled a deep breath, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from him. Indeed, it had been a huge relief to see her and realize that she was sound and well - on the outside at least. He had no doubt about her fortitude of mind and, after all, that had not been the first time that she had faced death; however, he couldn’t help but wonder with apprehension if there was a limit to her imperviousness to the psychological scarring of such experiences, and how close to it she was.

This concern troubled him so much, that he inadvertently revealed his emotions. Before he could recollect himself, as he was very self aware of his feelings, especially those that pertained her, she stood up – had she been sitting by his bed all the time he’d been asleep? – and went to the cockpit. There was no clear division of space within the ship; indeed, the bed where he was now was just ten metres or so away from the controls. She did not have to raise the tone of her calm and self-possessed voice to tell him what follows:

“You should not think of me as a human”. Silence can be more expressive than words themselves, and since he could not see her face, and could not gauge any emotion from the tone of her voice, he had to rely on it to understand how he was meant to react to what she was saying.

“Notions of human fragility, physical or otherwise, do not apply to me. Your actions were rushed, because you failed to see the situation from my point of view”. Explicit as silence could be, she needed to be certain that her next point would be understood, for which reason she turned to face him directly. “There is no way for you to know how it feels…what it means to be me. You do not know my limits, what I can do and what I can not. So, for your own sake, do not involve yourself in my business”.

“I want to be like you”. The words sprung to his lips, an invoulantary reaction to the bitterness that was growing in his soul, incited by her harsh words – a reflex mechanism that had managed to elude his own self-control. The thought had been nesting in the recess of his mind for long, but it had come to the surface of his consciousness only recently. Since then, he had been aware of how inconsiderate it was of him to think something like that; not only because of the obvious differences between them, that would always prevent that whish from becoming true, but also, and more importantly, because of how dangerous it would be if that were to happen. Despite this, he had not been able to suppress it, to obliterate it from his unconscious, and now that he had been thrown into turmoil by her admonishment, it had come to him once again, when he was the least ready to struggle with it and repel it. So strong was his admiration for her and for so long it had been repressed that, when it had come under scrutiny, he couldn’t help but defend it, by giving it voice for the first time. And even though he felt shame and remorse, he couldn’t blame himself for doing so, and finally being honest with her, and himself too.

He wasn’t surprised when he noticed her disappointment. She turned back to the controls of the ship, without uttering as much as a single word, and set course for the next destination.

The silence of the infinite space they were journeying across at light speed amplified the distance that she had put between them with her unflinching demeanour; it was as if an invisible wall had been erected that wouldn’t let neither sound nor feeling pass through. However, their journeys were always lonely, long and quiet – he conceded – and the present circumstances perhaps were not to blame at all for her perceived coldness, and only his heighted sensibility made him think so. He had hoped that she would open up to him, eventually, but that had not transpired – not yet. He would soon find out that the granting of his wish would come at the expense of the privilege he’d been enjoying: that of being at her side.

The journey ended when the ship reached a planet whose existence had been the stuff of legends. Many real places assume a mythical status by virtue of belonging to a time of which not much is known. In this case however, the mystery had been compounded by the federation’s attempts of destroying all mentions of the planet from the annals of history. Indeed, already once the technology that laid buried beneath the surface of the planet had fallen in the wrong hands, exposing the entire galaxy to a threat the like of which had never been faced before. The space pirates had been the first to raid the treasure of technological secrets and forbidden wisdom that the underground facilities jealously hid, and the federation was willing to go to whatever length it may take to prevent that from happening ever again. 

It was only in brief sentences, and with as much scorn as her composure would allow, that she spoke of the space pirates, a race of sentient insects with humanoid appearance, who were infamous throughout the galaxy for their acts of unwarranted aggression against whoever they may profit from annihilating. They were more than 2 metres tall, with claws instead of hands that opened to reveal beam emitters of deadly energy, their natural offence mechanism that they used indiscriminately even against the defenceless, like the ancient Chozo.

Once a race of belligerent bird-like people, who had conquered the whole galaxy and unified it under one empire, the Chozo had gradually retreated from their outposts at the outskirts of the galaxy to their homeworld. They left behind complex architectural marvels and thriving cultures that were now free to develop independently, leveraging whatever technological vestige of the falling empire they could comprehend and harness. It was like this, that the multitude of races that inhabited the galaxy had come to be. This much has been well understood by historians for years; however, the cause that had precipitated the retreat of the Chozo was still the topic of heated debates among academics, who divided themselves in two camps: those who believed that the Chozo had decided to let go of their power, possibly as a consequence of a change in their oligarchy, that had seen the rise of an isolationist faction; and those who believed that the Chozo had been forced, by an unknown cataclysm or internal turmoil, to concentrate all their efforts on the preservation of the status quo within their innermost territories. As always, the truth probably lies in the middle. Having extended their dominion to the limits of their highly advanced communication technologies, bound nonetheless to the laws of physics, it became increasingly challenging to maintain order and control over the subjugated territories; internal pressure must have started to mount to relinquish the old ambitions of hegemony that had dictated for centuries their foreign politics. At the same time, the need for more and more deadly weapons, which were necessary to subjugate their enemies and eradicate the seeds of rebellion before they could take root, might have led the Chozo scientists to investigate certain secrets of nature that should never be exposed.

In fact, there is a legend, which has been circulating for as long as the elders remember, that tells of the fall of the Chozo empire, and of how that came to be after an accident freed a deadly parasite from the confines of the laboratory where it was being studied by scientists who sought to turn it into a weapon. The parasite spread quickly among the ranks of the Chozo, jumping from vessel to vessel and from colony to colony, until it reached the capital city.

The nature of the infestation is not well known, but as the tale would have it, the parasite was an organism that had been discovered on a planet far away from the commercial routes, and that had been found to be miraculously impervious to all forms of energy. The entire planet had been devoted by the Chozo to the study of the parasite in its natural habitat. Presumably, the decision had also be taken as a safety measure, so that no contact between the scientists and the life form would be needed. Had the Chozo succeeded in taming and controlling the parasite, no war would have been waged ever again: to bring an entire planet to its knees, it would have sufficed to deploy the parasite from orbit, or possibly even from regions of space outside of the planetary defence system, and simply wait for the ensuing infestation to run its course, as it would invariantly do.

Apparently, so successful were the tests, that a vocal albeit small faction voiced concerns regarding the morality of developing such weapon, and began to oppose its further development. When they realized that their appeals fell on deaf ears, they decided to leverage the strategical position of some of their affiliates within the Metroid project – such was the name that had been given to the parasite – to sabotage it. That the Chozo empire would crumble, swiftly and silently, some time after, and that no record of the existence of the Metroid has ever been found, attests at least to the partial veracity of the legend.

Eventually, a tragic event would prove that the story had been true all along, as only the most arcane legends tend to be.

The space pirates, blinded by the power that would be bestowed on whoever managed to seize control of the Metroid, sent out to find the planet where the experiments had been conducted. In their foolish pursuit, they raided planet after planet, leaving a trace of death and destruction spanning galaxies and decades. Many colonies, whose only fault had been that of having been funded in the proximity of an archaeological site, that might have hold clues to the whereabouts of the Metroid planet, succumbed to the same fate, of which few witnesses ever survived. Finally, guided by the unwaning determination of their leader, the loathsome winged reptile, Ridley, the space pirates reached the destination of their deadly quest.

There, they found more than what they had anticipated. A small group of Chozo, the last surviving members of their race, had been living among the ruins of the old laboratory, in defence of the secret hidden within its walls. However, little could do these brave warriors, whose strength had been greatly subdued by time, against the brutality of the space pirates, who knew no reverence nor pity.

Having caught wind of the fate that had befallen the last surviving Chozo, whose existence had always been suspected and, perhaps, not altogether ignored, the Federation had sent to the planet the only person whose will was strong enough to stand alone against Ridley’s army. In truth, her past was intertwined with the fate of the Chozo civilization, and with the space pirates’ effort to locate the origin of the Metroid infestation; it had been for this reason that she had requested the Federation a chance to resolve the crisis on her own, and settle the score with Ridley.

Up until now, she had not told him any of this, but the time had finally come to reveal the secrets of her identity. It was for this reason that they were orbiting around the planet of Zebes, which was believed by some – or at least the few who knew of its existence – to have been a Chozo colony. Otherwise why, they would argue, had the space pirates taken such interest in it, if not to uncover the forgotten technology that laid buried beneath the remnants of the ancient civilization? Whether that was the truth or not, after she had left the planet, having completed her mission of annihilation of the space pirates, archaeologists working for the federation force set camp among the ruins of the installation that had been the target of their incursion and were able to recover and identify many Chozo artefacts.

She approached the window of the cockpit, leaning onto it with the open palm of her left hand, while resting her forehead on the arm. It was impossible to block the flow of memories, which was rushing in full force through the gates of her mind. She could do nothing but to withstand it, like a recurring ailment for which no remedy is known. Seeing her in such state made him feel responsible; that she was suffering because of him was something he could not stand to endure. However, the words that she had spoken to him came back in his aid, and thus he accepted that everything, including her visible pain, was as she had wished for.

The bounty hunter suddenly emerged from her thoughts, as if she had sensed the inquisitive gaze of her young companion. Nothing needed to be added to what had transpired before and so, after a quick glance toward him, she focused her attention on the ship’s control, as the landing procedure had been engaged by the ship’s cruise control system. Layer after layer of impenetrable clouds of increasingly darker shades of grey passed by the cockpit window, as the ship dived into the atmosphere, like a stone thrown into water. Finally, the landscape of cloudy formations disappeared like the faint recollection of a dream at dawn, and in its stead, mountains and valleys appeared, covered in tropical vegetation and battered by a furious tempest.

The winds rocked the haul of the ship like a child’s cradle, as it made its descent toward the ground. The landing lights illuminated an ever increasing portion of the land, a circular section of a grass field otherwise shrouded in darkness. The thrusters roared one last time and, with not as much as a mild bump, the ship finally landed. He had witnessed the procedure so many times, that none of the sensations he had felt the first and many times after – apprehension, admiration, elation – came to him this time around. Perhaps, that was in part due to a new, dreadfully overbearing feeling that was starting to take form within him. It had no name yet, but he could already point at some of its unmistakable relatives: fear, anxiety, curiosity. Though he could tell the lineage of his current state, he was unsure about how much of each of these precursors was contributing to it. This uncertainty had petrified him, anchored him to his seat, and it was only the vision of her figure, already out and about, walking outside under the rain, that awoke him from his trance. More precisely, it was the realization that she was not wearing her suit, an unprecedented deviation from the norm, that alerted him. So he rushed outside to reach her, under the guidance of his misplaced, and not altogether subdued, instincts of protection. Under different circumstances he would have debated with himself whether he was allowed to leave the ship or not, but now he understood that the present situation was special and that it allowed for special liberties.

The two of them were walking side by side down a path covered in grass tall enough to reach the young boy’s elbow, from which a limitless valley could be seen. However, not much could be discerned, as a thick fog covered everything beneath their elevation. Gradually, as they kept going down along the path, strange geometrical shapes, with very sharp angles and smooth surfaces, started to emerge from the fog. As they advanced toward them, the fog receded, revealing more and more of the structure they were part of. Eventually, the fog dispersed completely and a monumental entrance, emanating an inexplicable aura of sacredness, appeared in front of them.

A door forbade strangers from venturing inside the building, whose function was impossible to guess at a glance. She approached the door with confidence, clearly knowing what to do in order to open it. As she did so, the skin-tight suit that she was wearing in lieu of her usual armour, began to glow dimly, emanating a blue light. The fabric of the suit had been created using a process unknown to men, for it too, like the rest of her equipment, and her ship as well, was the result of the ingenuity of Chozo scientists. It had been engineered to ease the interface with the battle-suit that she usually donned on top. Each and every contraction of the fibres of her muscles was conveyed to the armour through the suit in the form of small, almost undetectable electric signals. These signals, which are not unlike those that travel from neuron to neuron inside our cortex, were generated by the suit through a process of conversion of the mechanical energy of her movements, whose efficiency almost defied the law of physics. There was no hope that mankind could ever replicate such feat of technology. She did not fear the danger that came from sporting such light protection; however, the anonymity that the armour granted made interacting with people, whenever that was necessary, more to her liking – that was perhaps the only safety measure that she wasn’t ready to relinquish yet.

The energy that the zero suit, so called due to its being the last layer of defence, generated from muscular contraction could be stored, if not needed. The stored energy could be devoted to many uses: powering the small laser pistol that she always carried with her, for instance, or bringing to life old machineries that had been starving for power. To this purpose, she now put her hands on the door, allowing the energy to flow into the circuits embedded within it. After a minute or so, all the energy that was stored in the suit had been transferred, and the door had taken on the colour of the light emanated by the suit; it looked like a portal into another world, uniformly covered by endless stretches of crystalline water.

Finally, the door started to slowly slide upwards, lifting a great amount of dust. The two of them found themselves surrounded by it, and could barely see what was in front of them. When the dust settled, the door had disappeared, revealing a long corridor, engulfed in darkness, that led inside. With no hesitation, she stepped into the darkness; as soon as she did that, the suit converted the forward momentum into energy, which irradiated the corridor with a diffuse azure light. The boy stuck close to her, fearing perhaps that the darkness, which was barely kept at bay, would swallow him.

“The federation has attempted time and again to access this installation, but they never managed to, despite their efforts.

That door would only open for the right person, they themselves being its key.”

She glanced back at him, as if expecting a remark of some sort, but the ominous surroundings had shut the boy’s mouth. He was holding his breath, fearing, perhaps, that he might awake the spirits of those whose resting place they were now intruding. Noticing how distressed he was, she nodded with her head in approval of his discretion.

“Indeed, many beings have lost heir lives here, in this installation. Their passing was violent, and came at the hand of an invading force, determined to unearth the secrets of this place.

Arrogant as they may have been in their distant past of glory, the inhabitants of this planet had embraced a peaceful way of living, and devoted themselves to aiding whoever might be in need of their help. Their extermination was a grave lost…and a personal tragedy.”

This had been the first time she had made reference to her past, even if only in these vague terms. He knew that, if he wanted to know more, asking would not help, as it would only test her patience. A feeling of longing had awaken in her, and her eyes had never looked as sad: he’d have to wait just a little bit more.

They had reached the end of the corridor, which had led them to a hall so vast that it appeared limitless, the opposite end nowhere in sight. The walls and the floor were covered in tiles carved out of the stone of the nearby mountains, which had not been processed in any way and were therefore uneven and rough. This, and the incredibly high ceiling, gave the impression that the space had been created by excavating a mountain, a feat that spoke highly of the technological prowess of the people who used to live in it.

As the two of them marched on steadfastly, venturing further and further in the unknown, the fear that had insinuated the boy’s mind mounted to such level, that he could no longer hold the obvious question:

“Where are we going?”

“I wanted to show you…so that you may not repeat my mistakes.”

“Show me what?”

“All that there is to me.” As these cryptic words were spoken, with such finality that barred any reply, they reached the end of the hall. At first, it looked like a dead end, since no door or aperture was in sight; however, as the bounty hunter approached the wall, he noticed that a part of it, of the shape and size of the entrance door, was perfectly levigated, unlike the rest of the surface. She lifted her hand and placed her palm on it, as she had done before when facing the closed entrance; in so doing, another ancient mechanism came to life, of which the sound of the spinning cogs that came from the wall was the vital sign.

The smooth, rectangular surface receded into the wall and lifted upwards, producing a puff of dust that, for a moment, obscured what could not longer remain hidden. At last, when the dust settled, a secret chamber was revealed. Like the rest of the installation, it was engulfed in darkness, but as soon as they stepped inside, the lights came on on their own. The chamber appeared to be a laboratory of sorts, judging from the equipment that laid around. The purpose of these objects was difficult to infer from their appearance, as they had been built, and had been meant to be used, by a race other than mankind.

However, among these objects there was one that would immediately catch anyone’s attention: it towered above everything else from the centre of the room, and its function could realistically be speculated upon. The shape was cylindrical, and it was mostly made of glass, which revealed a hollow structure, probably meant to contain a dangerous specimen. The diameter of the base was roughly two metres, and the glass reached the ceiling of the chamber, being more than 3 metres tall. Inside the cylinder, several tubes hanged from the top, and it seemed that some of them were meant to feed whatever creature used to be contained by the pod – as this was the nature of the object.

“I was born here…or rather, re-born” she said. Sensing how important of a moment that was for both of them, he stayed silent, letting her continue whenever she would feel ready. After a few moments spent in contemplation of the memories she had stored for so long in the recess of her mind, and that she was going to share for the first time ever, she began again, this time with a tone that denoted a new found determination.

“The Chozo was an ancient race of anthropomorphic beings – though they shared some traits of their physiognomy with volatiles – that once ruled over the entire galaxy. However, at the apex of their military expansion and technological advancement, they retreated to their homeworld, scared and appalled by their own unparalleled mastery of the sciences, and in particular the science of life creation and manipulation.

Many colonies like this one were left behind, since the natural resources of the home world would not be enough to supplant the needs of all. Thus, resentment toward those who had orchestrated the retreat grew among the colonies, that now had to feign for themselves against the perils of the outer space. Some of these colonies organized themselves in a federation of their own, with the intent of launching an offensive against their own brethren and tacking back the place they called home, which had fallen into such undeserving hands. This was but the first step of a grand plan, which would have culminated in the foundation of a new Chozo empire.

Other colonies, realizing that their brothers had been right in fearing their own innate ambition, and taking measure against it, decided not to take part in this plan, that was doomed to fail, but to defend at all cost the secrets of the Chozo race that had been left in their custody. Among these colonies there was one that had been founded by a group of scientists specialized in genome modification. This installation is what remains of it.

Eventually the two factions, the natives who had retreated to the place of origin of the Chozo civilization, and the rebels who sought to usurp them, clashed in one final battle, whose outcome would have been the total annihilation of the Chozo race, had not some of the colonies abstained from joining the fight. After the confrontation, the surviving colonies decided, independently of each other yet in total unanimity, not to reach out to each other, as if overwhelmed by a feeling of shame that prevented them from interacting, and perhaps trusting, their kin.

Centuries passed, and the fires of knowledge and progress that had been kindled throughout the galaxy died one by one - not by the expedite and merciful hands of a fierce conqueror, but by the slow and chilling embrace of time – until only one remained. The civilizations that had been visited by the Chozo in their infancy continued to prosper, even without the guiding hands of their benevolent overseers, and eventually most of them reached a stage of cultural and technological maturity that allowed them to explore the galaxy in search of the lost progenitors. Eventually, many proofs were found of the existence of a civilization whose traits were shared by many different races scattered across the galaxy, which had never been in touch with one another. Among such relics there were technological artefacts the study of which propelled the sciences, and in particular that of FTL travels, to heights such as would have not been reached in hundreds of years. These advancements turned what used to be a dream, the discovery of the Chozo home world, where it was believed that even more fantastic artefacts would be found, into something that could be reasonably thought of as within grasp.

Many colonial expeditions ventured the unknown in search of this new Shangri La. Most would not be heard of ever again after their departure but some, when forced to relinquish their ambition by the dwindling resources or, perhaps, abandoning it spontaneously when resolution waned, found a new home in regions of space that had not been witness to the proliferation of intelligent beings since the time of the Chozo empire.

My family and I were part of a mission that, like many others, eventually decided, after wandering aimlessly for generations, to settle on a planet, which happened to be only a few light years away from this solar system. The Chozo who lived here observed from afar our colony thrive, unbeknownst to us, hesitant to show themselves but also vigilant that no harm should befall us. After a few years of tranquillity, during which I grew to become a young girl, tragedy struck us. The space pirates became aware of the existence of a Chozo installation in this sector, though they ignored its exact location, and began raiding all the planets within it. They brought hell to our colony, killing everyone despite our profession of ignorance and willingness to submit. My parents’ corpses shielded me and hid me away from the murderous sight of the space pirates.

The Chozo meanwhile argued whether they should intervene in our defence. The once mighty warriors had grown to detest war and vowed never to train any of their young ones in the art of combat; few remained, despite their physiological longevity, who had been alive when their insignia had been known and feared throughout the galaxy. Moreover, had the space pirates prevailed against them, they would have been able to trace the convoy sent in our rescue back to this planet, and make a desert of the last Chozo settlement. The Chozo race would have been wiped out for good, and the secrets in their possession would have fallen in the hands of those who deserved them the least.

And so it was decided that a rescue team would be sent only once the space pirates would have been far and away”.

Up until then the bounty hunter had been recounting the events of that fateful day with unflinching composure and a steady voice , but now she stopped abruptly, as if struck by a far too vivid recollection that had come to her all of a sudden. Before she could recollect herself, a single, heavy tear welled up in the corner of her blue eye, deep and inscrutable as the sea itself.

Not a minute had elapsed before she resumed her narration, once again in full control of her emotions.

“The Chozo found me, freed me from the cold embrace of my father, who died shielding me from the space pirates, and brought me here. As I was too young to be left to my own means, and considering that the Chozo could not risk their existence to be revealed, it was decided I would live among them, until I could leave the planet and live on my own. However, that was not enough – not for me at least. I craved revenge against those who had slaughtered my family, and I demanded, aware of my foolishness yet unfazed by it, that I should be granted the means to exact it. The Chozo did not immediately reject my request, but instead pondered it much more seriously than I had dared to hope for. Those who were against it argued that it would be contrary to the tenants by which they had been living since the fall of the empire, of hope, peace and repentance, to train a stranger in the martial arts of the Chozo warriors. Those who were in favour of granting my request spoke of an ancient prophecy, whose details they took great care to hide from me, about a stranger – someone not of Chozo descendance – who would come to save the Chozo race from its annihilation. Even I, despite my young age, could see the implication – that I was the saviour the prophecy spoke of, and that I should be granted my request, so that one day I may use the skills I was going to learn to save the Chozo themselves; what I could not see is how anyone could be foolish enough to put any stock in it.

Notwithstanding my misgivings, the council ultimately decided that I should be trained as one of their kind. From then on, another burden, in addition to the vow of vengeance I was bound to by my parents’ deaths, weighed upon me: the fate of an entire race. This fardel would have been too much for me to carry, had not the Chozo been as compassionate and sympathetic to my predicament as they would prove themselves to be, time and again, throughout the years of my formation. However, there is no denying that my craving for vengeance was being exploited in the name of an ancient prophecy of dubious veracity, and I was too focused on my training – and too young - to be aware of it.

Before my training could commence , there was a _procedure_ that I needed to go through, to ensure that I would have the fortitude to endure the lessons that I was to be imparted. My DNA would have to be altered and combined with a sample of the Chozo’s own genetic material, so that my body could develop beyond the limits of human anatomy.

It was in this room that I spent most of my youth, subjected to interminable sessions of genome manipulation, during which the very fabric of my being was altered and fine tuned to perfection.”

She turned back to look into the boy’s eyes, to gauge if the tale she had told had had the effect she’d hoped for. He stood by the entrance, where he had been the whole time, too scared to take a single step further. The drab, clinical environment, devoid of any ornament or human touch, filled him with sorrow such as he had not felt since the death of his own parents. Now he understood why she had taken him under her wing, and this realization compelled him to listen to the rest of the story even more intently than before.

“For years I knew no pleasure other than dreaming of the murderous act that would avenge my parents and, hopefully, bring me peace. In the end, I did exact my revenge; however, by that point, so radically had my life been changed by the pursuit of that single goal, that the person I used to be had ceased to exist since long. The training I had received had numbed my spirit so much, that I felt none of the emotions I had anticipated. The liberation I had longed for never came, and the thirst for blood that I had quenched left a whole within me that I knew not how to fill.”

Having uttered the last words with utmost solemnity, as if she was reciting her own epitaph, she advanced toward him; then she took his hands in hers and, with a rare and unexpected smile, she said to him:

“You must not follow my path. Be happy, find someone to love, and who will love you back. Live long and maybe…one day we’ll see each other again.”

The kindness with which she had spoken made it impossible for him to reply. After a few moments of silence, that she let pass to stress the importance of her advice, the two of them walked back to the ship, hand by hand.

Time is relative. When you are past a certain age, five years do not amount to much. In geological terms, five years is nothing. But five years is also the time it takes for a teenager to grow up and become an adult. But is it age that makes the child a man? The federation seemed to think so, since it had no qualms enrolling in their ranks boys and girls who were barely past the age of eighteen.

Despite her warnings, he had resolved to apply to the military academy, perhaps in an attempt to feel closer to her, now that they had parted ways. He had known for years that one day they would have to say goodbye – he could not hope to follow her in her journeys forever. After all, it had been her hope all along that he could live a normal life, away from danger. However, that did not attenuate the pain he felt watching her walk away, after she had left him in the custody of trusted people whom she had befriended in one of her many adventures. And so he patiently waited for the day he would be of age to apply to the military program; he hoped that, by experiencing the rigorous training, he would get closer, if only by a little bit, to understanding her.

His expectations were matched and surpassed by the gruelling training regime. Eventually, he graduated from the academy and was sent to the battlefield, where he faced death time and again, until the day he feared death no more. However, that day life too lost its meaning, his heart became of stone and could no longer harbour the feeling of admiration and love that had inspired him to become a soldier in the first place.

Five more years went by since then. His memory had began to fade from her mind, and perhaps it would have been soon relegated to the past, had not an unexpected tragedy brought it back from the oblivion it was doomed to .

She had been engaged by the federation to rescue a military squadron that had been sent to an outpost to investigate the abrupt interruption of the communications: no status update had been received since it had landed on the asteroid on which the outpost had been built. When she arrived there herself, she realized immediately, from the bullet holes that were everywhere, that the squadron had found resistance. As for the nature of the enemy, there was no doubt that it had to be the space pirates, who were infamous for assaulting military outposts such as this, at the outskirts of the federation network, in order to raid the well-stocked armories. Eventually she located the rest of the brave members of the squadron. They had fallen under the heavy fire of the space pirates beams, and now their bodies laid, one on top of the other, in the small room where they had barricaded themselves.

This was a scene she had grown accustomed to since the space pirates had become bolder in the choice of their targets: from defenceless colonies outside of the protection of the federation to well-manned military installations. The death of their leader, Ridley, by her own hands seemed to have sorted little effect on their moral; if anything, the humiliation had angered them and, like cornered beasts, they had become fiercer and ravenous for revenge. The federation had been incapable of responding effectively to the strikes, due to the vastness of its territory, which forced it to spread its resources thin.

She was inspecting the corpses of the soldiers, looking for mementos to bring back to their families, when, suddenly, she recoiled, caught off guard by a terrible discovery she could have not anticipated. From beneath the pile of bodies a man, whom she had never met, was staring at her with glassy, lifeless eyes; he was dead too, but the memory that his visage brought back was so vivid that, for a moment, she had been fooled into thinking that he was not, and that fortune had reunited her with that child whom she had taken under her wings so many years ago. Indeed, his features bore an ominous resemblance to the ones that had just started to appear on the face of the boy when they had parted ways.

She took a look at his nameplate, but that only anguished her further, as the surname did not match, but the name did. Was that just a coincidence? Had he taken the name of his wife, perhaps? As she struggled to recompose herself, a flood of thoughts invaded her mind. Had she been wrong in leaving the boy in the care of her friends? Had she abandoned him? Among the many recollections that demanded her undivided attention, one emerged: the image of his face – the trembling lips, the red cheeks and the swollen eyes – as she waved him goodbye. 

Thoughts she had never dared to entertain came to her lips – had the boy been her last chance at a normal life? – and so she realized that the tears she was shedding were for herself, and her life of solitude, as much as they were for the sad fate that, perhaps, had befallen him.

When inspecting the body she noticed a gem, tied around his neck; a memento, gifted by someone to whom the man’s life must have meant a lot. The gem was of a rare variety, that could be found only on one planet; it was too expensive for the meagre salary of a simple soldier of the federation force, and so she concluded that it had not been bought, but rather mined by the very same hands that had donated it to the fallen soldier. With this information, she resolved to bring back the body to this person, so that it could be given proper burial, and that she may put to rest her doubts.

The planet whence the stone came was just big enough to generate a gravitational field that could support human life; moreover, only the areas around the mines had been colonized, and the population consisted mostly of people who worked there. Therefore, it was easy to verify that, indeed, the man had married a local girl who worked at one of the facilities where the ore was refined. She couldn’t help but notice, much to her pleasant surprise, how idyllic life seemed to be for the people with whom she had talked: the mineral was being extracted, refined and sold by the colonists without help from outside; this meant that all the profits went directly in the colonists’ pockets, and could be used however they pleased. The miners’ towns were unlike any other settlement of this kind she’d seen, and would make for beautiful backgrounds of postcards to be sent from the most sought out holidays destinations. If indeed it was the case that the man whose identity she still ignored was the boy that she used to know so well, and that she so much feared would follow her own path and become a nomad without a place to call home, at least she was relieved to find out that he had found such a hospitable place to settle down. That the decision may have been inspired by her warnings brought some solace to her heart which, at that moment, was troubled by the sense of guilt she felt for having been a part in the boy’s destiny, whatever that may turn out to be.

She was pointed in the direction of cottage that stood on the top of a hill, from which the whole of the neighbouring town could be seen. A sense of relief washed over her, as she gazed at the wondrous landscape, while the wind gently brushed her hairs. How many times had he stood in that same spot, contemplating the vista as she was? Had he been reminded of her too, as she had been of him?

A woman’s voice, which sounded concerned, yet also sweet, conciliating, brought her back to the present. However, despite its tone, she couldn’t help but be troubled by it, as it was calling her name:

“Samus!”

The voice came from the top of the hill, and its echo was so powerful, that it transposed her to a distant past, of which she had very few, precious memories, when she too had a mother who would call her like that, with the same affectionate apprehension. Suddenly, the warm touch of a child’s hand awoke her from her recollections; in front of her stood a young girl with blonde hairs, who was staring at her with a puzzled look. For a moment, she felt as if someone had put a magic mirror in front of her, that reflected her own appearance as it was thirty years prior. Alas, the illusion was shattered when the mother protectively embraced her daughter: Samus instinctively looked to her side, but no one was there.

“How many times have I told you that you should not rush to greet strangers like that?”

Emotion overwhelmed her. In the last days, time and again she had gone over the final moments she had spent with the boy, wondering if there was anything she could have said to prevent him from taking the path that, eventually, would lead him to her again, for the last time. She now realized that that path had been much less linear than how she had seen it before, and even if she had been the one to define its starting point, it had been him who had charted it. Despite its ending, it had been a journey that had brought happiness to him, and she was glad that she had been a part of it. For a moment, she vicariously felt all those emotions that she had been denied, and also those that she had denied herself. This was the gift that he had always wanted to give her, to let her know how important she was to him. For the first time in a long time, she felt part of a family again: she was not alone. 


End file.
